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| A Journal News editorial

Rockland County Legislature Minority Leader Frank Sparaco has been appointed “constituent representative” for the Clarkstown Highway Department — keeping alive the town’s penchant for hiring political operatives, even amid cost-cutting and consolidation.

As a Republican legislator, Sparaco has voted against tax increases, even as the county’s multimillion-dollar deficit swells; he’s fought pay raises for county employees; and tried to eliminate the county’s Youth Employment program. Now he earns $75,000 for the 25-hour-a-week town post. That’s $57.69 per hour. He gets no benefits, though — he gets those, courtesy of the taxpayer, through his part-time county post.

Besides his GOP leadership role, Sparaco also had been a key player in the county’s Independence Party. Highway Superintendent Wayne Ballard, like Sparaco, is a Republican. But in Clarkstown, that’s of little matter. The Democratic supervisor, Alex Gromack, has various party leaders in his employ, and election after election, he and Ballard have been cross-endorsed and rarely challenged.

Because the highway job is filled by appointment, the Town Board didn’t have to vote on the choice of Sparaco. However, they did vote unanimously in June to create the job.

Politics all around

Frustration over the pattern of cross-endorsements in Clarkstown — and town employment of politicos — helped spur the development of a grass-roots group, Disgusted Taxpayers of Clarkstown, which is now called Clarkstown Taxpayers.

“It just goes to show that patronage and cronyism continues in Clarkstown,” Clarkstown Taxpayers President Guy Gervasi told the Editorial Board.

“It’s a one-party town.” He added: “I have no problem with constituent services; it’s who they hired and what they’re paying.”

Sparaco, who has owned a tanning salon and vending machine business, worked with the New York State Assembly Minority Conference for the Mid-Hudson Region for about a year. As a county legislator, he also has his own constituent representative: Daniel Friedman, a Democratic Ramapo Town Board member, also works for five other legislators — and receives a salary of $34,400 for the 25-hour-a-week position.

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Sparaco himself called the job a political appointment. He told staff writer Hema Easely: “Hillary Clinton is a political appointee of (Barack) Obama.”

Patronage is an institution in Clarkstown.

The town’s clerk of the works, Ed Lettre, is executive director of the Rockland Conservative Party, a position that pays $169,000 a year. Mary Loeffler, chair of the Rockland Conservative Party, retired as Clarkstown’s personnel director, earning $134,200. She worked part time for the town, for $50 an hour, for about six months after her retirement.

Then there’s former deputy town attorney Marsha Coopersmith, who earned $126,590, plus benefits. She controlled the Independence Party until 2010. Then, a Sparaco-led effort wrested control of the local party and landed Sparaco’s mother-in-law, Debra Ortutay, in the chairmanship.

However, Independence Party leadership is now up in the air. Ortutay was sentenced in February to four months in jail after pleading guilty to forgery and perjury charges. The improprieties involved the signing of petitions for the party’s ballot line during the Assembly race between her son-in-law and Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, a Democrat. (Sparaco, by the way, accused Zebrowski, whose late father had held the Assembly seat, of being a do-little insider politician.)

Ortutay’s attorney was Jay Savino, chairman of the Bronx Republican Party. Savino was hired by Clarkstown in January for $87,000 a year to handle its tax certiorari filings. The extra help was needed, town officials said, after Coopersmith’s position was eliminated.

Sparaco began the post on Monday. On Tuesday, he said he was eager to help town residents with road, drainage and other problems.

Some of the 260 people who applied for the town Highway Department post were likely eager, too, to fulfill the position that pays a salary “commensurate with experience,” according to a Careerbuilder ad. But they didn’t have the right connections.